You will find out that Charity is a heavy burden to carry, heavier than the kettle of soup and the full basket. But you will keep your gentleness and your smile. It is not enough to give soup and bread. This the rich can do. You are the servant of the poor, always smiling and good-humored. They are your masters, terribly sensitive and exacting master you will see. And the uglier and the dirtier they will be, the more unjust and insulting, the more love you must give them. It is only for your love alone that the poor will forgive you the bread you give to them. –St. Vincent de Paul

It’s easy to run to others. It’s so hard to stand on one’s own record. You can fake virtue for an audience. You can’t fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is your strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running. It’s easier to donate a few thousand to charity and think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement. It’s simple to seek substitutes for competence–such easy substitutes: love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no substitute for competence.–Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

All points well taken. A German magazine (Der Spiegel I believe) was interviewing a Nigerian (or Kenyan perhaps?) economist. And the African begged off any future charity in Africa. “All the money goes to functionaries.” And this keeps graft and inefficiencies alive in the system.

I notice you chose three different attitudes and behavior illustrative of some rather famous people who expressed their own ideology and beliefs regarding charity…I’m not terribly familiar with female French author, George Sand…I think she had an ongoing affair with Fredric Chopin….but from her rather negative comment, I’d say she wasn’t a proponent of Christian charity as the second notation of St. Vincent de Paul…and the final declaration of Ayn Rand, a proponent of capitalism is the summation of what America is supposed to be….capitalism and competence…her communist upbringing was even an impediment to the development of true charitable giving….k